DOUG GRIPKA: Brokenness

Friday

Jan 12, 2018 at 9:52 AM

During the Christmas break, I had the opportunity to round up 4 of our younger grandkids for a morning of photographing wildlife. It wasn’t the first time I had done this and Jeremiah, Jacob, Marley and Nolan were all excited about the trip!

During the Christmas break, I had the opportunity to round up 4 of our younger grandkids for a morning of photographing wildlife. It wasn’t the first time I had done this and Jeremiah, Jacob, Marley and Nolan were all excited about the trip! We have a bird feeder just off the deck behind our house and it provides a very good sampling of birds and squirrels for our project but I wanted to add an element of majesty to the experience. I knew the perfect subjects – eagles!! I see several of these majestic creatures on my bus route near Stella and I had a pretty good idea where to take my posse of photographers. We had two cameras and the kids teamed up. After a few miles on the back roads, the crew in the back seat spotted an eagle perched high atop a tree in a nearby fence row. I stopped and they bailed out to capture the moment! In a few minutes they were back in the car and we continued our search. I watched in my rearview mirror as the kids were looking at the images they had captured. Then, they began to laugh at one particular picture Nolan had taken. It was a picture of a single black calf all alone in a corral. The little fella had a noticeably injured leg. Nolan was drawn to the animal and took its picture. Later that day, I was still pondering Nolan’s choice of subjects. Then, the thought occurred to me – this is exactly how God views us, the broken ones. While the world is busy focusing its attention on the majestic and beautiful, God draws close to the broken and lonely. Just as Nolan saw beauty in that calf, God sees the value and beauty in us! I learned a lesson that day on a backroad in Newton County from the eyes of a 6-year-old!! May you have His eyes to see the beauty He has crafted into you! God Bless You in 2018!!!

Doug Gripka is the pastor of Newtonia Baptist Church and writes a column for the Neosho Daily News.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.